u/Just_Revolution_1996

Can American Christians imagine that the rapture is almost absent from ordinary church life in some parts of the world?
I’m from Germany. We do have the word “Entrückung,” but in my context I have not heard a single sermon centered on it in roughly forty years. I’m not trying to debate the doctrine here. I’m asking whether it is conceivable to you that something so central in some American Christian circles is barely present elsewhere.

A necessary part of faith, not the opposite of it. I wonder whether doubt might actually be productive, and prevent us from violating the commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image." Because certainty about God can become its own kind of idol. Is a faith that has never been tested by doubt really faith, or just habit?

A while back, I was teaching a class on death and dying. An atheist student asked me what I thought about death. I did not quote scripture. I did not explain my faith. I told them that before my husband died, I was curious. And I told them what it was like to be there when he died. How quiet it was. The classroom had never been that quiet before.
I did not plan to give witness. But afterwards I realized that I had. Not by arguing for anything. Not by trying to convince anyone. Just by answering honestly, without fear, because faith had carried me through it and I was not afraid to say so.
When has this happened to you? A moment where you said something simple and true, and only later understood that something of your faith had become visible?